Guest Post From Italy - Schipescia

My friend Maria from Italy who is an interpreter by profession finds cooking relaxing and salutary. In her website,consecrated to her place of birth,one can not only explore the pulchritude of the place but also discover scores of traditional Italian recipe.

Let's see what she has for us.......

Hi Moon,

This is a very traditional recipe from my country. I was born in a village named Pietrapaola (http://www.pietrapaola.it/site/index.php), in south-Italian region Calabria.. It is located in the mountains, but it is no far from sea, where we spend the summer time.

Our traditional recipes are very easy, like this one. The name is schipescia, and i suppose that the origin is from Balkan, Greek or Albanian. In fact, the name seems to me related to "shqip" which means "albanian"!

Ingredients:

Eggplant
oil
vinegar
salt
chillies, chopped
bay leaves
garlic, sliced

Peel the eggplant and cut first into slices, then in strips, which will be no more than half a centimeter thick. Arrange them in layers in a deep pot, salting each layer. At the end close the container putting a dish or something similar on the last layer and a weight (as a stone) on the dish.

In this way, the eggplant will be squashed on the bottom while the juice will be pushed upward.
After 24 hours, put in a bowl chili, garlic, bay leaves and salt to taste.
Then pour off the juice of the eggplant and wash the vegetables in cool water over time. The last time dry the eggplant well by wringing. Place them in a dish and mix with the aromas previously prepared in the bowl. Add salt, oil and vinegar to taste. Put it all in a jam jar, cover with a layer of oil and close. In this way the schipescia can be stored for more than a year.